Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2014/15

Hannah Corcoran, Deborah Lader and Kevin Smith

Statistical Bulletin 05/15

13th October 2015 Important information

In accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, statistics based on police recorded crime data have been assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and found not to meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics. The full assessment report can be found on the UK Statistics Authority website. Alongside the Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2015 release, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a progress update on actions taken in addressing the requirements set out by the Authority. Further information is provided in the Hate Crimes Data Quality section (Annex A).

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) continue to be badged as National Statistics.

For further information about police recorded crime statistics, please email: crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or write to:

Crime and Policing Statistics, 1st Floor, Peel Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF

For further information about the Crime Survey for England and Wales, please email crimestatistics@ons.gsi.gov.uk or write to:

Crime Statistics and Analysis, Office for National Statistics, Room 4200E, Segensworth Road, Titchfield, PO15 5RR

Home Office Responsible Statistician:

David Blunt, Chief Statistician and Head of Profession for Statistics

Contact via crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

This statistical bulletin is produced to the highest professional standards and is free from political interference. It has been produced by statisticians working in the Home Office Crime and Policing Analysis Unit and the Office for National Statistics. It has been produced in accordance with the Home Office’s statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, which covers Home Office policy on revisions and other matters. The Chief Statistician, as Head of Profession, reports to the National Statistician with respect to all professional statistical matters and oversees all Home Office National Statistics products with respect to the Code, being responsible for their timing, content and methodology.

# Contents

| Section | Page | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|------| | Conventions used in figures and tables | iii | | List of figures and tables | iv | | Key points | 1 | | 1 Introduction | 2 | | 1.1 Overview | 2 | | 2 Police recorded hate crime | 4 | | 2.1 Prevalence and Trends | 4 | | 2.2 More detailed hate crime data from the Home Office Data Hub | 8 | | 2.3 Crime outcomes | 11 | | 3 Racist Incidents | 13 | | 4 Hate crime from the CSEW | 14 | | 4.1 Overall hate crime | 14 | | 4.2 Victimisation by personal and household characteristics | 16 | | 4.3 Repeat victimisation | 17 | | 4.4 Reporting hate crime | 18 | | 4.5 Hate crime by motivating factor | 19 | | 4.6 Additional information from the CSEW | 21 | | Further Information | 24 | | Annex A – Hate crime data sources and quality | 25 | | Introduction | 25 | | Police recorded crime data sources and validation process | 25 | | Crime Survey for England and Wales | 26 | | Understanding differences between the CSEW and police recorded crime | 27 | Conventions used in figures and tables

Table abbreviations

‘0’ indicates no response in that particular category or less than 0.5% (this does not apply when percentages are presented to one decimal point).

‘n/a’ indicates that the CSEW question was not applicable or not asked in that particular year.

‘-’ indicates that for recorded crime percentage changes are not reported because the base number of offences is less than 50, for the CSEW indicates that data are not reported because the unweighted base is less than 50.

‘..’ indicates for police recorded crime that data are not available.

Unweighted base

All CSEW percentages and rates presented in the tables are based on data weighted to compensate for differential non response. Tables show the unweighted base which represents the number of people/households interviewed in the specified group.

Percentages

Row or column percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding.

Most CSEW tables present cell percentages where the figures refer to the percentage of people/households/crime incidents who have the attribute being discussed and the complementary percentage, to add to 100%, is not shown.

A percentage may be quoted in the text for a single category that is identifiable in the tables only by summing two or more component percentages. In order to avoid rounding errors, the percentage has been recalculated for the single category and therefore may differ by one percentage point from the sum of the percentages derived from the tables.

‘No answers’ (missing values)

All CSEW analysis excludes don’t know/refusals unless otherwise specified.

Numbers of CSEW incidents

Estimates are rounded to the nearest 10,000. List of tables and figures

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2

Table 1 The five racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-racially or religiously aggravated equivalents .................................................................................. 3

2 Police recorded hate crimes .......................................................................................... 4

Table 2 Hate crimes recorded by police by monitored strand, 2011/12 to 2014/15 ............ 4

Figure 2.1 Number of racially or religiously aggravated offences by month, April 2013 to March 2015 ........................................................................................................... 6

Figure 2.2 Indexed trends in the number of assault with/without injury, public fear, alarm or distress (racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalents) offences, April 2013 to March 2015 ........................................................................................................... 7

Figure 2.3 Distribution of offences flagged as hate crimes, 2014/15 (for 22 forces in the Data Hub) ......................................................................................................................... 9

Figure 2.4 Breakdown of hate crimes and overall recorded crime by selected offence types, 2014/15 (for 22 forces in the Data Hub) .................................................................................. 10

Figure 2.5 Breakdown of hate crime by selected offence types and monitored strand, 2014/15 (for 22 forces in the Data Hub) .................................................................................. 11

Figure 2.6 Percentage of racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalent offences resulting in charge/summons, by offence type, 2014/15 ......................... 12

3 Racist incidents .............................................................................................................. 13

Figure 3.1 Number of racist incidents recorded by police (excluding British Transport Police), England and Wales, 2009/10 to 2014/15 ................................................................. 13

4 Hate crime from the CSEW ............................................................................................ 14

Figure 4.1 Number of estimated incidents of hate crimes with confidence intervals, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW ................................................................................................. 14

Figure 4.2 Percentage of victims who were victimised more than once in the previous year, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW ................................................................................................. 18

Figure 4.3 Victim satisfaction with the police, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW ......................... 22

Figure 4.4 Emotional impact of hate crime incident, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW ................ 23

Table 3 Percentage of hate crime incidents, by type of offence, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW ................................................................................................................................. 16

Table 4 Percentage of CSEW hate crime incidents that came to the attention of the police, CSEW ................................................................................................................................. 19

Table 5 Percentage of adults aged 16 and over who were victims of racially-motivated hate crime and all CSEW crime, by ethnic group, 2012/13 to 2014/15, CSEW ........ 20 Key points

Police recorded crime

- In 2014/15, there were 52,528 hate crimes recorded by the police, an increase of 18 per cent compared with the 44,471 hate crimes recorded in 2013/14, of which:
  - 42,930 (82%) were race hate crimes;
  - 5,597 (11%) were sexual orientation hate crimes;
  - 3,254 (6%) were religion hate crimes;
  - 2,508 (5%) were disability hate crimes; and
  - 605 (1%) were transgender hate crimes.

It is possible for one hate crime offence to have more than one motivating factor which is why the above numbers sum to more than 52,528 and 100 per cent.

- There were increases in offences recorded for all five of the monitored hate crime strands (race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity) between 2013/14 and 2014/15.

- As stated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), action taken by police forces to improve their compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) has led to improved recording of crime over the last year, especially for violence against the person offences. Together with a greater awareness of hate crime, and improved willingness of victims to come forward, this is likely to be a factor in the increase in hate crimes recorded by the police in 2014/15 compared with the previous year.

Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

- Based on combined data from the 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW, there were an estimated 222,000 hate crimes on average per year for the five monitored strands.(^1)

- The most commonly reported motivating factor in these hate crime incidents was race, with an average of 106,000 incidents a year according to the 2012/13 to 2014/15 surveys. The second most common motivating factor was disability (70,000 incidents per year).

- Respondents to the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW stated that 48 per cent of hate crimes came to the attention of the police, higher than for overall CSEW crime (40%). The main reason is likely to be the difference in the types of crime. For example, 49 per cent of hate crime incidents were for violence, compared with only 19 per cent of overall CSEW crime. Conversely, only 13 per cent of hate crime incidents were theft, compared with 19 per cent of overall CSEW crime. Reporting rates of violence from the survey are higher than for theft (49% and 40% respectively in the 2014/15 CSEW).

- Hate crime victims were less likely to be satisfied by the police handling of the incident, 52 per cent being very or fairly satisfied compared with 73 per cent for crime overall.

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(^1) The five monitored strands are: race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and gender-identity. See the Introduction of this report for more information. 1 Introduction

1.1 OVERVIEW

This publication provides information on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2014/15 and the number of hate crimes reported by respondents to the combined 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 Crime Surveys for England and Wales (CSEW).

Hate crimes recorded by the police

Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.’ This common definition was agreed in 2007 by the police, Crown Prosecution Service, Prison Service (now the National Offender Management Service) and other agencies that make up the criminal justice system. There are five centrally monitored strands of hate crime:

- race or ethnicity;
- religion or beliefs;
- sexual orientation;
- disability; and
- transgender identity.

Hate crimes are a subset of notifiable crimes that are recorded by the police and make up around one per cent of all crimes (based on police recorded crime figures for 2014/15, see Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2015).

In the process of recording a crime, police can flag an offence as being motivated by one or more of the five monitored strands above (for example, an offence can be motivated by hostility towards the victim’s race and religion). Figures in this bulletin show both how many hate crime offences the police recorded, and how many motivating factors these offences covered (for more information see Annex A).

Further information on how the police record hate crime can be found in the Hate Crime Operational Guidance publication. Around five per cent of hate crime offences in 2014/15 are estimated to have involved more than one motivating factor, the majority of these were hate crimes related to both race and religion.

Hate crimes and racially or religiously aggravated offences

There are some offences in the main police recorded crime collection which have a specific racially or religiously motivated version. These are defined by statute and constitute a set of offences which are distinct from their non-racially or religiously aggravated equivalents (the full list of these is shown in Table 1). These racially or religiously aggravated offences are by definition (see above) hate crimes. However, the hate crime collection on which the majority of the bulletin is based has a wider coverage of race and religious hate crime. This is because the police can identify any offence as a hate crime, not just those for which there is a separate racially or religiously aggravated offence for the police to record against. Therefore, the number of race or religious hate crimes in this bulletin will be greater than the total number of police recorded racially or religiously aggravated offences.

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2 http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_operational_guidance.pdf 3 Estimation from 22 Home Office Data Hub forces who supplied suitable data, see section 2.2 for more information on the Home Office Data Hub. Table 1: The five racially or religiously aggravated offences and their non-racially or religiously aggravated equivalents

| Racially or Religiously Aggravated | Non-Racially or Religiously Aggravated Equivalent | |-----------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------| | Offence code | Offence | Offence code | Offence | | 8P | Racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury | 8N | Assault with injury | | 105B | Racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury | 105A | Assault without Injury | | 8M | Racially or religiously aggravated harassment | 8L | Harassment | | 9B | Racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm or distress | 9A | Public fear, alarm or distress | | 58J | Racially or religiously aggravated other criminal damage | 58A | Criminal damage to a dwelling | | | | 58B | Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling | | | | 58C | Criminal damage to a vehicle | | | | 58D | Other criminal damage |

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office.

Racist incidents recorded by the police

This release contains figures on the number of racist incidents reported to police forces in England and Wales (excluding British Transport Police). A ‘racist incident’ is any incident, including any crime, which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race or perceived race.

Racist incidents can include notifiable offences, non-notifiable offences (e.g. some types of anti-social behaviour), incidents that were not subsequently recorded as crimes and ‘cancelled or transferred records’ (formerly referred to as no crimes). Conversely, certain race hate crimes may not have been initially recorded as racist incidents if the racial motivation was not immediately apparent. For these reasons, the racist incidents total does not match the race hate crimes total.

Overview of the Crime Survey for England and Wales

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a face-to-face victimisation survey in which adults aged 16 and over resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of crime in the 12 months prior to interview. Due to the low volume of hate crime incidents in the sample survey, the figures are not sufficiently robust to report for a single year of the CSEW. Data from three survey years have therefore been combined to give larger sample sizes, increasing the number of incidents available for analysis. For the latest time period, data have been combined for the 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 CSEW; this includes incidents experienced by respondents between March 2011 and February 2015. Figures reported in this section are 12-month averages of the estimates from the three survey years and so are comparable with 12-month CSEW estimates presented elsewhere in this and other crime statistics bulletins.

The coverage of the CSEW is limited to crimes which involve a specific identifiable victim, for example where an individual has been assaulted, a household has had property stolen or vandalised. The survey excludes other crime where a specific victim is more difficult to identify, for example, public order offences without a specific targeted victim. Such crimes (if reported) will, however, be included in the police recorded crime data.

A relatively small number of respondents to the survey are victims of hate crime and as a result the margins of error around the estimates for hate crime are large. They do, however, provide context to the police recorded crime statistics.

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4 A cancelled or transferred record occurs when the police have originally recorded an offence, but have subsequently determined that the crime did not take place, or was recorded in error.

5 See Section 2.4 in ONS’s User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales for details of reference periods.

6 See Annex A for more information on the 3-year dataset. 2 Police recorded hate crime

2.1 PREVALENCE AND TRENDS

There were 52,528 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2014/15, an increase of 18 per cent compared with 2013/14 (44,471 offences; see Table 2).

Table 2: Hate crimes recorded by the police by monitored strand, 2011/12 to 2014/15

| Hate crime strand | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | % change 2013/14 to 2014/15 | |-------------------------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-----------------------------| | Race | 35,944 | 35,845 | 37,466 | 42,930 | 15 | | Religion | 1,618 | 1,572 | 2,269 | 3,254 | 43 | | Sexual orientation | 4,345 | 4,241 | 4,584 | 5,597 | 22 | | Disability | 1,748 | 1,911 | 2,006 | 2,508 | 25 | | Transgender | 313 | 364 | 557 | 605 | 9 | | Total number of motivating factors | 43,968 | 43,933 | 46,882 | 54,894 | 17 | | Total number of offences | N/A | 42,255 | 44,471 | 52,528 | 18 |

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office. See Bulletin Tables for detailed footnotes.

Table 2 also shows the number of hate crimes broken down by monitored strand. It is possible for a crime to have more than one motivating factor (for example an offence may be motivated by hostility towards the victim’s race and religion). Thus, as well as recording the overall number of hate crimes, the police also collect data on the number of motivating factors by strand as shown in Table 2. For this reason, the above numbers sum to more than 52,528 and 100 per cent.

In 2014/15, of the 52,528 hate crimes:

- 42,930 (82%) were race hate crimes;
- 5,597 (11%) were sexual orientation hate crimes;
- 3,254 (6%) were religion hate crimes;
- 2,508 (5%) were disability hate crimes; and
- 605 (1%) were transgender hate crimes.

There were increases in all five of the centrally monitored strands between 2013/14 and 2014/15 (Table 2).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has attributed recent increases in some categories of police recorded crime to improvements in police recording rather than a real increase in offences. For

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7 See [http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/year-ending-march-2015/index.html](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/year-ending-march-2015/index.html) example, there was a 23 per cent increase in the overall number of police recorded violence against the person offences between 2013/14 and 2014/15 while the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates for violent crime showed no statistically significant change in this period. Work recently undertaken by the National Police Chiefs Council indicated little change in the level of violent incidents coming to the attention of the police at the same time that the number of recorded offences was increasing. Just under a third (30%) of police recorded hate crime is for violence against the person offences (based on 22 police forces who submitted data via the Home Office Data Hub, see Section 2.3 for more detail), so any changes in recording practices may be a factor in the trend in overall hate crime. An additional cause of the rise in hate crime may be an improved identification of motivating factors behind an offence.

There has been some evidence and anecdotal reports(^8) to suggest that the increases in race and religious hate crimes may be partly due to higher levels of hate crime following specific highly publicised incidents (or trigger events(^9,10)), rather than solely due an improvement in the identification of offences as hate crimes. This is discussed in more detail below.

### Race and religious hate crimes

The number of race hate crimes increased by 15 per cent (up 5,464, to 42,930 offences; Table 2) between 2013/14 and 2014/15. Over the same period, religious hate crime increased by 43 per cent (up 985 to 3,254 offences; Table 2).

As mentioned in the Introduction, the police have the option to record some offences as racially or religiously aggravated. While not covering all hate crime offences, in practice the majority of race or religious hate crimes that the police record will come under one of these aggravated offence codes. As the majority (79%) of race and religion hate crimes are recorded using the aggravated offence categories highlighted in Table 1, the overall level of race and religion hate crimes will be affected similarly.

The data the Home Office receives from the police in the main police recorded crime return for these offences are available on a monthly basis(^11), allowing the in-year trend in these offences to be seen around the time of particular incidents. Figure 2.1 shows, for example:

- a peak in July 2013 in racially or religiously aggravated offences following the Lee Rigby murder,
- a rise in racially or religiously aggravated offences in July 2014 followed by a fall in August, suggesting little effect of the conflict in Israel and Gaza in July/August 2014,
- that despite reports claiming an increase in hate crime following incidents such as the release of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham in August 2014 or the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015, Figure 2.1 does not show a clear spike around these times.

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(^8) For example, there was a rise in racially and religiously aggravated offences following the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013 – see [https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2013-to-2014](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2013-to-2014)

(^9) [https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2015/02/05/antisemitic-incidents-report-shows-record-uk-high-in-2014](https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2015/02/05/antisemitic-incidents-report-shows-record-uk-high-in-2014)

(^10) [http://news.met.police.uk/news/met-s-response-to-rise-in-islamophobic-hate-crime-in-london-128144](http://news.met.police.uk/news/met-s-response-to-rise-in-islamophobic-hate-crime-in-london-128144)

(^11) Although data from the main police recorded crime collection are sent to the Home Office broken down by month, the data are only quality assured with police forces on a quarterly basis. The improvement in the recording of offences by the police was mentioned above as a possible factor for the increase in police recorded hate crime. The increase in racially or religiously aggravated offences between February and July 2014 seen in Figure 2.1 matches the general trends seen in police recorded violence and public fear alarm or distress offences over the same time period. This can be seen in Figure 2.2, where indexed trends are presented for assault with/without injury, public fear alarm or distress and their racially or religiously aggravated equivalent offences. The chart shows that these three crime types track each other relatively well over the last two years. As shown later in Section 2.2, almost 90 per cent of overall hate crimes are violence against the person (which includes assault with/without injury) and public fear alarm or distress offences. Police recorded hate crimes

Figure 2.2: Indexed trends in the number of assault with/without injury, public fear, alarm or distress (racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalents) offences, April 2013 to March 2015

In the last quarterly release, ONS stated “Action taken by police forces to improve their compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) is likely to have resulted in the increase in the number of offences recorded. It is thought that recording improvements are more likely to affect relatively less serious violent offences and explains the larger increase in the sub-category “violence without injury” compared with “violence with injury”. ONS has also been informed there has generally been little change in the volume of “calls for service” related to violent crime in the year ending March 2015 compared with the previous year. Calls for service refer to emergency and non-emergency calls from members of the public and referrals from partner agencies (such as education, health, and social services) for police to attend an incident or investigate a case. This, along with the evidence from the CSEW, suggests the rise in recorded violence against the person is largely due to process improvements rather than a genuine rise in violent crime.”

The trends seen in Figure 2.2 fit with the improvements in crime recording as being the main factor for the increase in police recorded hate crimes over the last year. However, it is important to recognise that improved recording may not be the only reason, and there could be an element of a real increase in police recorded hate crime.

Race hate crime was the most commonly recorded strand of hate crime in all 44 police forces. For 41 forces, religious hate crime was either the third or fourth most commonly recorded strand (Appendix Table 2.01). Hate crime data by police force area for 2011/12 to 2013/14 can be found on the Home Office open data page.

The Home Office also collects data on the number of racist incidents (that is notifiable offences as well as incidents which do not amount to a crime in law) recorded by police, more details on these are included in Chapter 3. Sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity

In 2014/15, there were 5,597 sexual orientation hate crimes, 2,508 disability hate crimes and 605 transgender identity hate crimes.

As mentioned above for race or religiously aggravated offences, recording improvements are likely to be a factor in the increase in offences recorded by the police. This is also the case for increases in disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity hate crime. The increase across all three strands (25% for disability, 22% for sexual orientation and 9% for transgender) may suggest improved identification of hate crime as a factor, but it is possible that some of the increase is real. These could be genuine increases in hate crimes or increases in the numbers of victims coming forward to report a hate crime.

For 38 police forces, sexual orientation hate crime was the second most commonly recorded hate crime. In the majority (41) of forces transgender identity hate crime was the least commonly recorded hate crime (Appendix Table 2.01).

2.2 MORE DETAILED HATE CRIME DATA FROM THE HOME OFFICE DATA HUB

The Home Office are continuing to implement an improved data collection system called the Data Hub which is designed to streamline the process by which forces submit data. The Home Office Data Hub is replacing the old system with automated capturing of record level crime data via direct extracts from forces’ own crime recording systems. This allows the police to provide more detailed information to the Home Office enabling a greater range of analyses to be carried out. The migration to the Data Hub is ongoing and for forces providing data via the Data Hub, it is possible to exploit this richer data and conduct a more in depth analysis of hate crime offences.

Twenty-two police forces (accounting for 54% of the total number of hate crimes recorded in 2014/15 and including the Metropolitan Police Service) provided suitable hate crime data through the Data Hub for 2014/15. However, it should be noted that the analysis in this section may not be representative of all forces in England and Wales.

Hate crimes by type of offence

Using the Data Hub it is possible to examine which specific types of offence have been flagged as hate crimes. The available data show that for the 22 police forces analysed (Appendix Table 2.02):

- Fifty-nine per cent of hate crimes were public order offences, with the vast majority of these (98%) being public fear, alarm or distress;
- thirty per cent were violence against the person offences, of which 30 per cent were violence with injury with the remaining 70 per cent being violence without injury offences; and
- seven per cent were criminal damage/arson offences while the remaining three per cent were other notifiable offences. (Figure 2.3).

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12 In addition to ONS’s statement previously given, anecdotal evidence provided by some forces have mentioned there have been drives to improve the reporting and the recording of hate crime, as well as further training of staff. 13 The following forces submitted suitable data via the Data Hub in 2014/15: Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Durham, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Merseyside, Metropolitan Police, Norfolk, Northumbria, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Thames Valley, West Mercia. The above percentages of each offence type were similar to the findings for the 18 Data Hub forces analysed in 2013/14.

By way of comparison, Figure 2.4 shows that in 2014/15, the proportion of overall crime accounted for by these categories was very different:

- public order offences accounted for four per cent of all notifiable offences compared with 59 per cent of hate crime;
- violence against the person accounted for 22 per cent of all offences compared with 30 per cent of hate crimes. A smaller proportion of violent hate crimes tend to result in injury compared with overall violent crime: 70 per cent of police recorded violence hate crimes were violence without injury (Appendix Table 2.02) compared with 52 per cent of overall violent offences.

Figure 2.5 shows the proportion of offence types that made up each monitored strand. The two most common offence types associated with hate crime for all strands were public order offences and violence against the person without injury. 2.3 CRIME OUTCOMES

The Home Office also collects information on the outcomes of police recorded offences, including those that are flagged as being racially or religiously aggravated. For more information on outcomes see Crime Outcomes in England and Wales 2014/15.

Figure 2.6 shows that racially or religiously aggravated offences were more likely to be dealt with by a charge/summons than their non-aggravated counterparts. In particular:

- thirty per cent of racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm and distress offences were dealt with by charge/summons compared with 24 per cent of the non-aggravated equivalent offences,
- thirty four per cent of assault offences were dealt with by charge/summons compared with 21 per cent of non-aggravated assaults,
- twenty one per cent of criminal damage offences resulted in charge/summons, while only nine per cent of non-aggravated criminal damage offences were dealt with in this way. Figure 2.6: Percentage of racially or religiously aggravated and non-aggravated equivalent offences resulting in charge/summons, by offence type, 2014/15

Source: Police recorded crime, Home Office 3 Racist Incidents

A ‘racist incident’ is defined as any incident, including any crime, which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person. The coverage is wider than the race hate crime collection as non-notifiable offences, as well as notifiable offences, are included.

In 2014/15, there were 53,902 racist incidents recorded by the 43 police forces in England and Wales (racist incident data excludes the British Transport Police). The number of racist incidents recorded by police remained relatively stable between 2011/12 and 2013/14, before increasing by 10 per cent in 2014/15 (Figure 3.1; Appendix Table 3.01). It is likely, that along with police recorded hate crimes, that improved recording and identification of racist incidents is a factor behind the increase seen in the last year. Furthermore, while incidents are recorded under the National Standard for Incident Recording in accordance with the same ‘victim focused’ approach that applies for recorded crime, it is known that there are substantial variations between police forces and over time in how they record racist incidents. Given the greater quality, development and depth of the police recorded hate crime, we are considering future plans for the racist incident collection.

Figure 3.1: Number of racist incidents recorded by police (excluding British Transport Police), 2009/10 to 2014/15

Source: Police recorded incidents, Home Office 4 Hate crime from the CSEW

4.1 OVERALL HATE CRIME

According to the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW, there were around 222,000 incidents of hate crime a year, representing around three per cent of crime overall in the CSEW (7,530,000 incidents)(^{14}). This compares with the finding in Chapter 2 that around one per cent of police recorded crime was flagged as a hate crime.

Of the monitored strands asked about in the 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW (race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and gender-identity), the strand most commonly perceived as an offender’s motivation for committing a crime was the offender’s attitude to the victim’s race (around 106,000 incidents on average a year). The monitored strand least commonly perceived as an offender’s motivation for committing a crime was the victim’s gender-identity (the number of CSEW respondents who were victims of this type of hate crime was too low to provide a robust estimate) (Appendix Table 4.01).

Figure 4.1: Number of estimated incidents of hate crimes with confidence intervals, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW

As previously stated, survey years have been combined to give more robust estimates for the level of hate crime in England and Wales. However, even with the joining of datasets, the number of victims of hate crime upon which these estimates are based are relatively small. Therefore, the associated ‘range’ or confidence intervals(^{15}) around the estimate of total hate crimes and each monitored strand

(^{14}) The 7,530,000 incidents of crime overall in the CSEW is approximately the average of the 8,487,000, 7,318,000 and 6,786,000 incidents reported in the 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 CSEW.

(^{15}) This confidence interval is the range of values that we can be 95% confident that the actual number of hate crimes is between. are relatively large, as shown in Figure 4.1, meaning it can be difficult to make comparisons between the monitored strands over time.

However, there was a statistically significant fall(^{16}) in the number of hate crime incidents from 307,000 in the combined 2007/08 and 2008/09 CSEW to 222,000 in the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW (a fall of 28% between these combined surveys). Over the same time period, there was a similar percentage fall (25%) in crime overall in the CSEW, from 10,063,000 incidents in the combined 2007/08 and 2008/09 CSEW to 7,530,000 in the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW (Table 4.01). The CSEW suggests, therefore, that hate crime has fallen at a similar rate to overall CSEW crime over this period.

The CSEW provides estimates of the levels of personal and household crimes experienced by adults in England and Wales. Personal crimes are those against the individual and only relate to the respondent’s own personal experience (not that of other people in the household). Household crimes cover property crimes which target the entire household (for example, burglary, criminal damage, or vehicle-related theft) and respondents are asked whether anyone currently residing in the household has experienced any such incident(^{17}).

The 2012/13 to 2014/15 combined CSEW shows there were around 148,000 incidents of personal hate crime and 74,000 incidents of household hate crime a year(^{18}). Total CSEW crime incidents were around 2,994,000 incidents of personal crime and 4,536,000 incidents of household crime a year overall in the CSEW for the equivalent combined period (Appendix Table 4.01). While 40 per cent of incidents of overall CSEW crime were personal crimes, around two-thirds (67%) of hate crime incidents were personal crimes.

The combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW estimates show that 0.4 per cent of adults were victims of any hate crime in the 12 months prior to interview. A similar percentage were victims of personal hate crime (0.2%) as were victims of household hate crime (0.2%). To put these figures in context, looking at CSEW crime overall, around five per cent of adults were victims of personal crime and around 13 per cent of households were a victim of household crime (Appendix Table 4.03).

There was a statistically significant fall(^{19}) in the percentage of adults who were victims of hate crime from 0.6 per cent in the combined 2007/08 and 2008/09 CSEW to 0.4 per cent in the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW. Over the same time period, there was also a fall in prevalence of crime overall in the CSEW, from 23 per cent of respondents in the combined 2007/08 and 2008/09 CSEW to 17 per cent in the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW.

Three per cent of crime incidents overall in the CSEW were perceived to be hate crime incidents, a similar figure to the estimates for previous years (also 3%). The proportion of incidents that were perceived to be hate crime varied by crime type. For example, eight per cent of violence without injury incidents were perceived to be hate crime whereas three per cent of criminal damage incidents were perceived to be hate crime (Appendix Table 4.04).

These two offence types accounted for the majority of hate crime incidents in the CSEW, with 49 per cent of hate crime incidents being violence, and around a fifth (19%) being criminal damage. In comparison, only 19 per cent of overall CSEW crime was violence (Table 3).

(^{16}) Statistical significance testing for all crime has been assumed based on significant changes observed in the 2 sub-categories of personal and household crime.

(^{17}) See Section 2.5 in ONS’s User Guide to Crime Statistics in England and Wales for a discussion of measures of CSEW crime.

(^{18}) Numbers do not sum to overall hate crime incident total due to rounding.

(^{19}) Statistical significance testing for all crime has been assumed based on significant changes observed in the 2 sub-categories of personal and household crime. Table 3: Percentage of hate crime incidents, by type of offence, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW

| Type of incident | All hate crime | All CSEW crimes | |----------------------------------|----------------|-----------------| | PERSONAL CRIME | | | | Violence without injury | 26 | 10 | | Violence with injury | 24 | 9 | | Robbery | 4 | 2 | | Theft from person | 8 | 7 | | Other theft of personal property | 6 | 12 | | ALL PERSONAL CRIME | 67 | 40 | | HOUSEHOLD CRIME | | | | Criminal damage | 19 | 20 | | Burglary | 8 | 11 | | Vehicle-related theft | 1 | 13 | | Bicycle theft | 1 | 5 | | Other household theft | 4 | 11 | | ALL HOUSEHOLD CRIME | 33 | 60 |

Unweighted base 1

Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office for National Statistics

1. Base is all CSEW crime incidents.

4.2 VICTIMISATION BY PERSONAL AND HOUSEHOLD CHARACTERISTICS

Analysis of victimisation by personal and household characteristics showed that for personal hate crime (as with CSEW crime overall, ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2015, Annual Trend and Demographic tables), the risk of being a victim varied by socio-demographic characteristics. It should be noted that differences in victimisation rates between ethnic groups may be at least partly attributable to factors other than ethnicity. Previous research (Jansson, 2006; Salisbury and Upson, 2004) has shown that people with a Mixed ethnic background are most at risk of crime. However, multivariate analyses identified that, for the key crime types, ethnicity was not independently associated with the risk of victimisation (Jansson et al., 2007). The proportion of young people in the Mixed ethnic group was, for example, found to be large in comparison to other ethnic groups; and young people are at a higher risk of victimisation (Flatley et al., 2010). There are also inter-relationships between other personal characteristics.

The risk of being a victim of personal hate crime in the 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW (Appendix Table 4.05) was highest, for example, among:

- people aged 16 to 24 (0.4% experienced personal hate crime), and in particular men aged 16 to 24 (0.5% of 16 to 24 year-old men experienced personal hate crime, compared with fewer than 0.05% of men aged 75 and over);

- those with the religious group ‘other’ (1.1%) or Muslim (0.6%) compared with 0.1% of Christian respondents;

- people with Black (0.7%), Asian (0.5%) or Mixed Ethnic (1.4%) backgrounds compared with White adults (0.1%);

- those whose marital status was single (0.4% compared with 0.1% of married adults); The risk of being a victim of household hate crime (Appendix Table 4.06) was highest among, for example, people who:

- were social renters (0.4% experienced household hate crime compared with, for example, 0.1% of owner occupiers);

- lived in a household with a total income of less than £10,000 (0.5% compared with 0.1% among those who lived in households with a total income of £50,000 or more).

### 4.3 REPEAT VICTIMISATION

Repeat victimisation(^{20}) is defined here as being a victim of the same type of any hate crime more than once in the last year(^{21}). Levels of repeat victimisation account for differences between CSEW estimates of incidence rates (Appendix Table 4.03) and victimisation rates (Appendix Table 4.04). For instance, high levels of repeat victimisation will be demonstrated by lower victimisation rates when compared with corresponding incidence rates (see for example, ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2015, Annual Trend and Demographic tables).

The combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW estimates show higher rates of repeat victimisation for hate crime compared with CSEW crime overall for both personal and household crime (Figure 4.2 and Appendix Table 4.07).

______________________________________________________________________

(^{20}) See Section 2.5 of ONS's User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales for a discussion of repeat victimisation.

(^{21}) Where incidents of a similar nature that are probably carried out by the same perpetrator(s) have occurred, CSEW estimates only include the first five incidents in this ‘series’ of victimisations, see Section 2.5 of ONS’s User Guide to Crime Statistics in England and Wales. Incidents of hate crime were also more likely to be repeatedly experienced for household crime offences than for personal crime offences. The 2012/13 to 2014/15 combined surveys showed 35 per cent of victims of household hate crime had been victimised more than once in the previous year, compared with 27 per cent of victims of personal hate crime. This difference is larger than that found in overall CSEW crime (25% of victims of CSEW household crime were repeat victims, compared with 20% of victims of CSEW personal crime; Appendix Table 4.07).

4.4 REPORTING HATE CRIME

The CSEW asks people who experienced crimes in the past year whether the police came to know about the incident, that is, whether they reported it or the police came to know about it in another way (for example, they arrived at the scene of crime). Based on the 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW, overall 48 per cent of hate crime incidents came to the attention of the police, similar to the proportion of hate crimes in previous surveys (Table 4). The proportion of hate crime incidents that came to the attention of the police was higher than that for overall CSEW crime, which was 40 per cent. The difference in reporting rates was most marked for household crime (Table 4).

The main reason for the differences in the proportion of hate crimes coming to the attention of the police compared with overall crime is likely to be due to the type of hate crimes identified by the CSEW. For example, Table 3 showed that 49 per cent of hate crime incidents were for violence compared with only 19 per cent of overall CSEW crime. Conversely, only 13 per cent of hate crime incidents were theft, compared with 19 per cent of overall CSEW crime. These two incident types have different reporting rates to the police, with violent incidents having consistently had a higher reporting rate over a number of years (49% in Table D8 ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2015, Annual Trend and Demographic tables) compared with the reporting rate to the police for theft incidents (40%). Table 4: Percentage of CSEW hate crime incidents that came to the attention of the police, CSEW

| Percentages | 2007/08 to 2008/09 | 2009/10 to 2011/12 | 2012/13 to 2014/15 | |-------------|-------------------|-------------------|-------------------| | | Percentage reported to police | Unweighted base | Percentage reported to police | Unweighted base | Percentage reported to police | Unweighted base | | All hate crime | 51 | 516 | 49 | 666 | 48 | 409 | | All CSEW crime | 39 | 24,935 | 39 | 34,314 | 40 | 20,718 |

Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office for National Statistics.

1See Bulletin Tables for detailed footnotes.

4.5 HATE CRIME BY MOTIVATING FACTOR

This section provides a summary of the information available for each of the five monitored strands from the CSEW. However, the CSEW cannot be used to provide information below the headline statistics on the strands of disability, sexual orientation or gender-identity as the number of victims covered by the sample in the survey was too small to provide robust estimates.

Racially motivated hate crime

Based on data from the CSEW for 2012/13 to 2014/15, it is estimated that there were an average of 106,000 incidents of racially motivated hate crime per year (Appendix Table 4.01). The majority of incidents (67,000) were personal crimes (such as assault or personal theft offences).

From these combined surveys, 0.2 per cent of adults were estimated to be victims of a racially motivated hate crime in the 12 months prior to interview.

Adults in non-White ethnic groups were much more likely to be victims of a racially motivated hate crime than White adults (for example, 1.0% of Asian and 0.7% of Black adults compared with 0.1% of White adults, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW). This is a more pronounced difference in the likelihood of victimisation than for overall CSEW crime (of which hate crime incidents are a subset), where similar proportions of adults from different ethnic groups were victims (19% of adults from an Asian ethnic group and 18% of those from a Black ethnic group were victims of crime compared with 17% of White adults; Table 5). Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2014/15

Table 5: Percentage of adults aged 16 and over who were victims of racially-motivated hate crime and all CSEW crime, by ethnic group, 2012/13 to 2014/15, CSEW

| Percentages | England and Wales, CSEW | |-------------|-------------------------| | | All racially motivated hate crime | All CSEW crime | Unweighted base | | ALL ADULTS | 0.2 | 17.2 | 103,601 | | Ethnic group | | | | | White | 0.1 | 17.0 | 93,891 | | Mixed/multiple ethnic groups | 1.1 | 26.6 | 971 | | Asian/Asian British | 1.0 | 18.6 | 5,126 | | Black/African/Caribbean/Black British | 0.7 | 17.7 | 2,770 | | Other ethnic group | 0.8 | 14.8 | 735 |

Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office for National Statistics

1See Bulletin Tables for detailed footnotes.

Analysis of racially motivated hate crime by religion shows that Muslim adults or those whose religion was coded as 'other' were more likely to be a victim of racially motivated hate crime (1.2%) than other adults (for example, 0.1% of Christian adults or those with no religion) (Appendix Table 4.09).

Religiously motivated hate crime

Based on data from the CSEW for 2012/13 to 2014/15, it is estimated that there were an average of 38,000 incidents of religiously motivated hate crime per year (Appendix Table 4.01). This total was split fairly evenly between personal crimes (21,000 incidents) and household crimes (17,000).

From these combined surveys, it is estimated that 0.1 per cent of adults were victims of a religiously motivated hate crime in the 12 months prior to interview. The 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW showed that Muslim adults were the most likely to be a victim of religiously motivated hate crime (0.8%; Appendix Table 4.10).

Adults with an Asian ethnic group were more likely to be victims of a religiously motivated hate crime than adults of White ethnic group (0.5% and less than 0.1% respectively, 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW; Appendix Table 4.10).

Sexual orientation motivated hate crime

The combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW dataset estimates that there were 29,000 sexual orientation hate crimes per year on average (Appendix Table 4.01).

In October 2013, Stonewall released ‘Homophobic Hate Crime: The Gay British Crime Survey 2013’22. This survey, based upon the responses from 2,544 lesbian, gay and bisexual adults from across Britain in February and March 2013, provides an alternative source of information about sexual orientation hate crime.

22 Homophobic Hate Crime: The Gay British Crime Survey 2013 Disability motivated hate crime

The combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW dataset estimates that there were 70,000 disability motivated hate crimes per year on average (Appendix Table 4.01).

The Life Opportunities Survey(^{23}) provides additional information on disability hate crime. Published in December 2011, the Life Opportunities Survey Wave One results 2009/2011 found that two per cent of all adults interviewed had been a victim of hate crime in the past 12 months. This is higher than the CSEW estimate of 0.4 per cent, partly because it includes age and gender motivated hate crime but also due to the different question wording(^{24}).

Gender-identity motivated hate crime

The CSEW has only asked about gender-identity hate crime since 2011/12. Even though the data have been analysed using data from combined years of the CSEW, the number reporting a gender-identity motivated crime is still very small and therefore a reliable estimate for this particular strand of hate crime cannot be produced.

4.6 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THE CSEW

As well as the level of hate crime estimates from the CSEW, additional information is available on victim satisfaction with the police following a hate crime incident, the emotional impact of being a victim and respondents’ worry about hate crime. Where possible, comparisons are made with overall crime as measured by the CSEW.

Victim satisfaction with the police

CSEW respondents who were victims of crime and had contact with the police in the last 12 months were asked how satisfied they were with the way the police handled the matter. Based on the combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 surveys, 52 per cent of hate crime victims were very or fairly satisfied with the handling of the matter, a lower proportion that for victims of CSEW crime overall (73% were very or fairly satisfied). Hate crime victims were also more likely to be very dissatisfied (35%) with the police handling of the matter than overall CSEW crime (14%; Appendix Table 4.11 and Figure 4.3).

The differences in victim satisfaction with the police for hate crime victims compared with overall crime victims might in part be due to the type of crimes identified by the CSEW (as rates of police satisfaction differ by offence type – see Table S14 ONS, Crime in England and Wales - year ending March 2015, Supplementary tables). However, although based on a low number of respondents, victims of violent hate crime incidents were less satisfied with the police (46% were very or fairly satisfied) than victims of overall violent crime incidents (68%, table not shown).

(^{23}) Life Opportunities Survey home page

(^{24}) The answer categories included a health condition, illness or impairment, which is not included in the CSEW question. The combined 2012/13 to 2014/15 surveys show that victims of hate crime were less likely to think the police had treated them fairly or with respect, compared with victims of CSEW crime overall. For example, in 59 per cent of hate crime incidents the victims thought the police treated them fairly, compared with 81 per cent of incidents of CSEW crime overall. Similarly, in 79 per cent of incidents of hate crime, victims thought the police treated them with respect, compared with 89 per cent of incidents of CSEW crime overall. These patterns are similar to previous years (Appendix Table 4.11).

Effects of hate crime

As part of the follow-up questions on their crime experience, victims were asked if they had an emotional reaction after the incident and, if so, how much they were affected and in which ways. According to the 2012/13 to 2014/15 surveys victims of hate crime were more likely than victims of CSEW crime overall to say they were emotionally affected by the incident (92% and 81% respectively) and more likely to be ‘very much’ affected (36% and 13% respectively); this trend is similar over time (Appendix Table 4.12).

Of those who said they were emotionally affected, victims of hate crimes tended to be more affected than victims of CSEW crime overall. For example, more than twice as many hate crime victims said they had suffered a loss of confidence or had felt vulnerable after the incident (39%), compared with CSEW crime overall (17%). Hate crime victims were also more than twice as likely to experience fear, difficulty sleeping, anxiety or panic attacks or depression compared with victims of overall CSEW crime (Figure 4.4). This is probably not due to the type of hate crimes identified by the CSEW, as victims of violent crime tend to be less likely to say they were emotionally affected than victims of other crime types. (Table 3.4 ONS Nature of crime tables 2013-14 Violence and Table 7.5 ONS Nature of crime tables 2013-14 Personal and other theft). Worry about being a victim of crime

The CSEW asks respondents how worried they are about being a victim of different types of crime. The 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW showed that overall 11 per cent of adults were ‘very’ worried about being subject to a physical attack because of their skin colour, ethnic origin or religion. Unsurprisingly, as with the other perception questions, this was much higher among adults from Asian Ethnic backgrounds (16%) or Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (13%) than among White adults (2%); Appendix Table 4.13). This compares with five per cent of adults who were ‘very’ worried about being a victim of any crime, the pattern amongst ethnicity showing a similar split (8% of White adults and 20% of all non-White adults). Further information

‘Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2011/12’ is available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2011-to-2012--2

‘An Overview of Hate Crimes in England Wales’ (wider coverage using data from the Ministry of Justice and the Crime Survey for England and Wales) is available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/an-overview-of-hate-crime-in-england-and-wales

‘Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2013/14’ is available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crimes-england-and-wales-2013-to-2014

Other sources of hate crime data from a number of different organisations (including the Association of Chief Police Officers, Stonewall and the Crown Prosecution Service) can be found here: http://www.report-it.org.uk/hate_crime_data1 (figures published by ACPO are based upon calendar year data and also include Northern Ireland).

The True Vision website contains more information about hate crime and how to report it: http://www.report-it.org.uk/home

Information about ‘Challenge it, Report it, Stop it: The Government’s Plan to Tackle Hate Crime’ can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/challenge-it-report-it-stop-it-a-plan-to-tackle-hate-crime, and the latest update can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/307624/HateCrimeActionPlanProgressReport.pdf

Hate crime statistics published by the Scottish and Northern Irish governments can be found here: http://www.psni.police.uk/index/uploads/updates_domestic_and_hate_motivation_statistics.htm

http://www.copfs.gov.uk/images/HateCrimeinScotland2014-15.pdf (figures published by the Scottish Government are based on the number of offenders charged, rather than police recorded crime).

The Crown Prosecution Service website also carried information about hate crime, including policy and guidance and performance information, which can be found here: http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/hate_crime/index.html

A report by the Law Commission which considers whether hate crime offences should be extended to cover all five on the monitored strands can be found here: http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/document/hate-crime-2/

Copies of other Home Office publications (including crime statistics releases prior to April 2012) are available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/crime-statistics#publications

Copies of crime statistics publications from April 2012 are available from the Office for National Statistics website: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Crime+and+Justice

This includes the User Guide to Crime Statistics, a useful reference guide with explanatory notes regarding the issues and classifications that are key to the production and presentation of the crime statistics.

The dates of forthcoming publications are pre-announced and can be found via the UK National Statistics Publication Hub: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements Annex A – Hate Crimes Data Sources and Quality

INTRODUCTION

In January 2014, the UK Statistics Authority published its assessment of ONS crime statistics. It found that statistics based on police recorded crime data, having been assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, did not meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics. The UK Statistics Authority published a list of requirements for these statistics to regain the National Statistics accreditation.

Some of the requirements of this assessment were to provide more detail on how data sources were used to produce these statistics, along with more information on the quality of the statistics. Additionally, there was a requirement to provide information on the process used by police forces to submit and revise data, and the validation processes used by the Home Office. In order to ensure that this publication meets the high standards required by the UK Statistics Authority, details are provided below.

POLICE RECORDED CRIME DATA SOURCES AND VALIDATION PROCESS

Hate crime data are supplied to the Home Office by the 43 territorial police forces of England and Wales, plus the British Transport Police. Forces either supply the data monthly via the Home Office Data Hub or on an annual basis in an aggregated return. For forces with data on the Data Hub, the Home Office extracts the number of offences for each force which have been flagged by forces as having been motivated by one or more of the monitored strands. It is then possible to derive the count of offences and the number of monitored strands covered. In the aggregate return, police forces submit both the total number of hate crime offences (that is a count of the number of unique offences motivated by one or more of the five monitored strands) and the number of monitored strands (or motivating factors) associated with these offences. The second figure is supplied broken down by monitored strand so an offence motivated by hostility to race and religion would be counted twice, once under each of the strands.

Further information on how the police record crime can be found in the Hate Crime Operational Guidance publication.

At the end of each financial year the Home Office carry out a series of quality assurance checks on the hate crime data collected from the police forces (either by aggregate return or via the Data Hub). These checks include:

- Looking for any large or unusual changes in hate crimes from the previous year.
- Looking for outliers.
- Checking that the total number of hate crimes is higher than the total number of offences. Where these two figures were the same, the force was asked to confirm they were recording multiple hate crime strands.
- Comparing the number of racist incidents with the number of race hate crimes.

25 For recording purposes, the perception of the victim, or any other person, is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident, or in recognising the hostility element of a hate crime. The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incident. (http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_operational_guidance.pdf) Police forces are then asked to investigate these trends and either provide an explanation, or resubmit figures where the reconciliation identifies data quality issues.

The data are then tabulated by monitored strand and year and sent back to forces for them to verify. At this stage they are asked to confirm in writing that the data they submitted are correct and if they are not, then they have the opportunity to revise their figures.

Racist incidents are provided to the Home Office on an annual basis and are confirmed with forces.

**CRIME SURVEY FOR ENGLAND AND WALES**

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a face-to-face victimisation survey in which adults resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of crime in the 12 months prior to interview. Due to the relatively low volume of hate crime incidents in the sample survey, the figures are not sufficiently robust to report for a single year of the CSEW. Data from three survey years have therefore been combined to give a larger sample size, increasing the number of incidents available for analysis. For the latest time period data have been combined for the 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 surveys. In 2012, the CSEW amended the design of its sample and in addition to the creation of a bespoke CSEW sampling geography, a subtle revision to the sampling process enforced a stricter structure so that after three years it allowed for the possibility of creating unclustered three year national datasets on a rolling basis. The advantage of these datasets, based on three years data rather than one, is that the tripling of the sample size and the removal of any cluster from the design act together to facilitate the production of more precise estimates for smaller populations.

As the survey runs continuously throughout the year and respondents are asked about their experiences in the 12 months to interview, the time period covered from these combined surveys is March 2011 to February 2015.

This report provides an estimate of the level of hate crime in England and Wales from these combined surveys. Information from the survey also covers details about people’s experiences of hate crime, including whether they reported the incident to the police, the emotional affects experienced and their satisfaction with the police. Data are also provided on respondents’ worry about hate crime. Where possible, comparisons are made with overall crime as measured by the CSEW.

As well as asking respondents about the five monitored strands of hate crime, the CSEW also asks respondents if they thought the incident was motivated by age or gender, though no analyses are produced by age and gender in this publication.

The CSEW question on whether an incident was motivated by race was first introduced in 1988, and has been kept as a separate question since then. Religiously motivated hate crime used to be asked about as a separate question (in the 2005/06 and 2006/07 CSEW) but was merged into the main CSEW question when further hate crime questions referring to sexual orientation, age and disability were introduced in 2007/08. In 2009/10, gender was added as a motivation and gender-identity was added as a motivation to the 2011/12 survey.

For this publication total hate crime for the 2012/13 to 2014/15 CSEW includes all five monitored strands, though estimates for gender-identity hate crimes are not provided separately due to the small number of incidents that are perceived as being motivated by this strand. Total hate crime for the 2007/08 and 2008/09 CSEW only includes the four strands: race, religion, disability and sexual orientation. Total hate crime for the 2009/10 to 2011/12 CSEW includes the four strands for 2009/10 and 2010/11 and five strands for 2011/12.

______________________________________________________________________

26 See Section 2.4 in ONS’s [User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales](https://www.ons.gov.uk) for details of reference periods. Limitations of the CSEW questions

The CSEW does not ask about hate crime directly as the concept is not well understood by the public and is likely to lead to mis-reporting. Instead, victims are asked about their perception of the offender’s motivation for the incident which is an indirect measure as it represents the victim's perceptions of the offender’s motivation for the crime. This may result in some over-reporting since it is possible that some crimes considered here as hate crimes may actually be more a result of the victim’s vulnerability to crime, for example, a vulnerable household victim of a distraction burglary(^{27}), or an assumption on the victim’s behalf that the crime was motivated by the offender’s attitude. Conversely, a victim might be unaware that they were targeted due to a personal characteristic covered by the hate crime strands.

The CSEW may over- or under-represent people who are more susceptible to hate crime. For example, people with a disability might find it more difficult to take part in the survey if, for example, their disability impacts on their ability to communicate with an interviewer. On the other hand, response rates to the survey might be higher among victims than non-victims as the topic seems more relevant to them.

Moreover, there may also be other characteristics underlying those covered by the monitored strands which mean that the victim is more at risk of particular crime types. For example, findings from the CSEW have consistently shown that young people aged 16–24 are more likely to be victims of crime and it is known that particular Black and Minority Ethnic groups have a younger age profile than that for the general population in England and Wales.

It should also be noted that although the CSEW asks whether or not the victim perceived the incident to be motivated by the monitored strands (for example, his or her disability status), it is possible in the cases of household crimes that it was someone else in the household that has the characteristic. For example, it could be that for a household crime the respondent was White but another member of the household of Black or Minority Ethnic background was the intended target of a crime against the household (e.g. an incident of vandalism).

Understanding differences between the CSEW and police recorded crime

There are a number of differences in the coverage of the CSEW and police recorded crime which present challenges in comparing across the sources.

The sources cover different time periods; CSEW data relate to a near four-year period due to the joining of three datasets mentioned earlier (although figures presented are per year), while police recorded crime data are on a financial year basis.

The coverage of the sources also differs; the CSEW is a victimisation survey which covers adults aged 16 and over resident in households in England and Wales while police recorded crime figures includes crimes against people of all ages, against society (crimes where there is not a direct victim such as public order offences) as well as businesses and institutions. A key difference for hate crime offences is the coverage of public order offences in police recorded crime but generally not in the CSEW, as many of these offences will not involve a specifically identifiable victim. As previously shown, around half of all police recorded hate crime is for public fear, alarm or distress, a public order offence.

For the crime types the CSEW does cover, the combined 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 surveys estimated that 48 per cent of hate crime incidents came to the attention of the police. However, there are a number of reasons (in addition to those detailed above) why the police recorded levels of hate crime are not as high as 48 per cent of the CSEW estimate:

(^{27}) Distraction burglary is a form of burglary where the offenders trick or dupe the occupant or distract them, allowing co-offenders to gain access and commit burglary. As mentioned above, the survey questions might be misunderstood by the respondent. When they are asked whether they think a crime is motivated by a factor (such as disability), they may instead be responding based upon their perceived vulnerability.

The respondent is asked in the survey whether the hate crime incident came to the attention of the police, not whether the police actually recorded the crime (the police may witness an incident and think it not a crime, for example).

Similarly, while a respondent might say the crime did come to the attention of the police, we do not know whether the respondent actually told the police that they thought it was motivated by one of the five hate crime strands (and therefore whether the police flagged the offence as a hate crime).

In the recording of a crime, it might not become apparent that there was a motivating hate factor, meaning that police may not ask the direct question whether the victim thought that the crime was a hate crime.

There is also more overlap between some of the hate crimes in the CSEW (especially racially and religiously motivated hate crimes) as the survey allows respondents to identify more than one motivating factor for each incident. For example, previous research has shown that around 20 per cent of racially or religiously motivated CSEW hate crimes contained both these motivating factors. Conversely, only five per cent of police recorded hate crimes involved more than one motivating factor in 2014/15.

The differences between the sources can also be seen in the distribution of hate crimes. While 82 per cent of hate crimes recorded by the police were race hate crimes, the corresponding figure from the survey is 48 per cent. The survey suggests a higher proportion of hate crimes are for the religion, sexual orientation and disability hate crime strands than is found in the police recorded crime figures. For disability hate crimes, for example, this fits the pattern that some respondents in the CSEW might be answering the question based upon their perceived vulnerability. For example, a burglary victim with a disability may have felt that this was a factor that made them a vulnerable target, but it does not necessarily follow that the offender targeted the individual due to a hatred of their disability.

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28 See Understanding differences between the CSEW and police recorded crime section in An Overview of Hate Crimes in England Wales Statistical Bulletins are prepared by staff in Home Office Statistics under the National Statistics Code of Practice and can be downloaded from GOV.UK:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/about/statistics

ISBN: 978-1-78246-860-8

ISSN: 1759-7005

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